news stories and commentary

The Blame Game: Black Women, Shame, and Victim Blaming

The many stereotypes of black women are used to justify violence and aggression against them. Because black women are mythologized as gold-digging, angry, physically strong, provocative shrews some black men assume (and this is something that having a mama, a auntie, a grandmother who raised you, or your own damn daughters doesn’t change) that if/when black women are hit, they asked for (or deserved) it. At the end of the day many men empathize with other men and instead of vilifying any act of violence, physical or otherwise, against anyone, especially a woman, they attempt to justify it. They put themselves in the shoes of the aggressor, but not the victim, and see themselves as blameless and reactionary, rather than violent and misogynistic.